Briefs: Cyan to raise £3m; Meldex’s finance chief goes; CSR gets to self test Bluetooth chips
Fabless semiconductor Cyan Holdings plc (Cyan.L) said it will place shares worth £3.0m to fund its revised strategy.
The company is focussing on the design, sale and support of a range of low power, richly featured 16-bit general-purpose microcontroller chips.
During 2007, Cyan changed its management team and followed a new strategy for distributing its products and reducing its manufacturing costs. Beginning in July, the first six months of an 18 month plan saw it undertake a radical restructuring of the business. As well as establishing relationships with distributors in Asia, the US and Europe to help increase sales penetration, Cyan concentrated on the recruitment of an experienced operations team, the development of a low cost entry level device for Asia, the creation of a new suite of products, expansion of the marketing team and significant investment in software development.
The second six months to 30 June saw the launch of new module products, initial orders and engagement with customers who have potential for initial volume orders in the 2H 2008.
Having completed the business restructuring and demonstrated engagement in new markets the Directors said they believed the Placing proceeds would provide the resources to take it through to profitability.
The Cambridge-based company's share price slid, predictably, on news of the placing, taking the market cap to just over £2m.
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Meldex International (MDX.L), the specialty pharma and healthcare company, said Finance Director Hiral Patel has left by mutual agreement.
The role of Finance Director, will be filled on an interim basis by Helmut Kerschbaumer, who joined the Board on 3 July. Mr Kerschbaumer who is part of the management team from Melbrosin, which was acquired by Meldex last year has more than 10 years experience of the pharmaceutical business. His primary responsibilities at Melbrosin were finance and logistics.
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CSR (CSR.L) said it has been recognized by the Bluetooth SIG as a Bluetooth Recognised Test Facility (BRTF). CSR's test facilities are seen as having developed to the point where it can entirely test its own firmware, rather than using an external testing house. BRTF status means CSR can be more agile in its testing practices, helping customers to get their products to market faster, reinforcing CSR's continued expertise in Bluetooth.
BRTFs are organisations recognised by the Bluetooth SIG as able to perform 'Category A' tests as defined by the SIG's Test Case Reference List and Test Plan Generator. BRTFs may only perform tests on behalf of their own company.
